Xiaomi Says Smartphone Shipments Almost Quadruple in First Half

Bloomberg News

July 1, 2014, 11:59 PM EDT

Xiaomi Corp. smartphone shipments almost quadrupled in the first half of this year, surpassing the total amount of the devices the company sold in 2013.

The four-year-old smartphone maker that outsells Apple Inc. in China shipped 26 million smartphones in the first half of this year, almost four times the 7.03 million devices sold in the same period a year ago, Tony Wei, a spokesman for the Beijing-based company, said by phone today. Xiaomi shipped 18.7 million units in 2013.

Sales in the first half of this year more than doubled to 33 billion yuan ($5.3 billion) from 13.3 billion yuan a year ago, Wei said. Xiaomi in April set a target to boost phone shipments to 100 million units in 2015 as the company pushes outside its home market of China and starts sales in 10 new markets including India, Brazil and Russia.

Xiaomi’s valuation hit $10 billion with a fundraising round last August, the closely held company said at the time.

In the first quarter of this year, Xiaomi was the third-largest smartphone vendor in the China market, and the sixth-largest globally, according to estimates from researcher Canalys.

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